Hel

Hel is the third of the children Loki fathers with the giantess Angrboða in Jötunheim; the other two are the wolf Fenrir and the World Serpent Jörmungandr. Snorri says prophecy warned the gods that the three would bring them great harm, so Odin had them fetched. He threw the serpent into the sea; Hel he cast into Niflheim and gave her authority over nine worlds, to share out lodgings among those sent to her: people who die of sickness or of old age.
Her hall is called Éljúðnir, her dish Hungr, 'Hunger', and her knife Sultr, 'Starvation'. Her thrall and her serving-maid are Ganglati and Ganglöt, both names meaning roughly 'slow-goer'; her bed is Kör, 'Sickbed'. She herself is half blue-black and half flesh-coloured, and looks downcast and fierce.
She speaks only once, after Baldr's death. Hermóðr rides Sleipnir for nine nights, crosses the bridge over the river Gjöll, leaps the gate of Hel and finds Baldr in the high seat. Hel sets the terms: if everything in the world, living and dead, weeps for Baldr, he returns to the Æsir; if anything refuses, he stays with her. Everything weeps except the giantess Þökk, thought to be Loki, who answers 'let Hel keep what she has'. At Ragnarök, Snorri says, all of Hel's people follow Loki, and afterwards Baldr and Höðr come back from Hel.
Outside Snorri, hel is mostly a place. Völuspá has a cock crow beneath the earth at the halls of Hel, Baldrs draumar sends Odin riding down to Hel's high hall, and Grímnismál 31 says Hel lives under one of the roots of Yggdrasil. Her looks and household are known only from Snorri. Older poets did picture death as Loki's daughter: Ynglingatal, traditionally dated to around 900 though its date is disputed, says that 'Loki's maid', the sister of the Wolf and of Narfi, has taken the king Dyggvi, who died of sickness, for her pleasure. How far a goddess Hel was believed in before Snorri, rather than used as a poetic image of death, is debated.